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| Juvenile justice competence and developmental maturity |
| Rosemary C. Sarri |
| Institute for Social Research，the University of Michigan，Ann Arbor，USA |
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Abstract Whether juvenile delinquents are appropriate to be convicted and incarcerated as adults for criminal act continue to be a hot debate. In this article，the author argued that the answer should be‘no’. She based her argument on the recent neurocognitive evidence of still developing prefrontal cortex of adolescents，which make them less culpable for their actions. The situation is even worse for juvenile delinquents as they are at higher risk of abuse and trauma，which resulted in greater impairment of the prefrontal cortex. As a conclusion，the author urged that the current justice system should take into consideration the neurocognitive immaturity of juvenile delinquents when they are charged with a criminal act.
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2013, Vol. 1 
